the-glories-of-mary

568 GLORIES OF MARY.
ON THE FIFTH DOLOR.
OP THE DEATH OF JESUS.
AND now we have to admire a new sort of
martyrdom, a mother condemned to see an in
nocent son, whom she loved with all
the affec
tion of her heart, put to death before her eyes,
by the most barbarous tortures. There stood by
the cross of Jesus his mother: "Stabat autem
juxta crucem mater There
ejus." is nothing
more to be said, says St. John, of the martyrdom
of Mary: behold her at the foot of the cross,
looking on her dying Son, and then see if there
is grief like her grief. Let us stop then also to
day on Calvary, to consider this fifth sword that
pierced the heart of Mary, namely, the death of
Jesus.
As soon as our afflicted Redeemer had ascend
ed the hill of Calvary, the executioners stripped
him of his garments, and piercing his sacred hands
and feet with nails, not sharp, but blunt: "Non
acutis, sed obtusis;" as St. Bernard says,* and to
torture him more, they fastened him to the cross.
When they had crucified him, they planted the
cross, and thus left him to die. The execution
ers abandon him, but Mary does not abandon
him. She then draws nearer to the cross, in
order to assist at his death. "I did not leave
him,"
thus the blessed Virgin
* Serm, 2, de Pass.
revealed to St.